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A sponge
Sponge & Cnidarian
A sponge
Hemigellius arcofer (Vosmaer, 1885)
WoRMS AphialID
166752
Sample IDs
ARC81476 https://bench.boldsystems.org/index.php/MAS_DataRetrieval_OpenSpecimen?selectedrecordid=ATCSP130-24;
Collected
Scotian Shelf, Labrador
Distinguishing Features
• External appearance: Trawl collected specimens very large, flattened fragments of sponge. Many ostia visible over their surface. Spicule fibres in skeleton visible giving the sponge a woven appearance. The type specimen was also fragmented but Vosmaer hypothesised that the original shape was probably a fan.
• Skeleton: Formed of thick columns up to ten oxea across connected by single oxea.
• Spicules: Oxea 420 by 15-22 μm (Fig. C); Toxa 57-178 μm (Fig. E) and, sigmata 12-19 μm (Fig. D).
Habitat
Grows on bedrock and boulders. Usually in depths > 100 m. But recorded in 20 m in the Fjardic environment of Lake Melville.
Geographic Range
The type locality is in the Barents Sea. Has also been recorded from East Greenland, Norway, and the Laptev Sea. In Canada recent records from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Labrador, and the Scotian Shelf.
Fun Fact
The Latin name translates as 'bearing bows' and presumably refers to the presence of toxa in the spicule complement.
Barcode Distribution
BIN contains specimens from the Flemish Cap and Norway.
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